There are a few things about cooking for a group that don’t work well for one.  Portions, recipes, prep time, and cleanup…

The portions one finds at a supermarket tend to be much larger than a single person can eat in a reasonable time.  A bag of tortillas is 30 pieces. There are no 5 or 10 bags – enough for a week or two.  Salmon fillets are measured in pounds (from what I understand 4-6 oz is one serving).  Just too much food at a time.  On the flip side, smaller amounts means more packaging and less green.

Recipes tend to be for serving a family.  Rarely is there a recipe for one person.  In some cases, this is a problem – it is difficult to scale down a recipe.  Smaller portions means more precise measuring and when cooking the size the meal it changes the cook times.

Some recipes require many steps and can take an hour or so to put together.  This isn’t a problem when cooking for a family or scout patrol, but when cooking for one person an hour over food is something that people who love cooking do – not someone who wants to cook the food and eat it shortly after.

Similar to prep time, cleanup is a hassle.  There is an economy of scale with cooking and cleaning.  It takes about the same time to clean up a large bowl and a large sauce pan as it does to clean up a small bowl and small sauce pan.  It is less than ‘fun’ to spend half an hour preparing the food, 15 minutes eating it, and then another half an hour cleaning up what you ate.